Charles' London Architectural Journal 2007

Meanderings of an Londoneering Castaway.
A series of Charles' occasional observations. He does go on a bit...
Shuffling soon to a street near you.

December 2007

Ignorance Is Strength
Hello. Sorry about the site crashes. I dont know what's going on.
One is a slave to ones provider. Today, some of the data is lost.
Oh well, just like the government, data discs do go a missing.
I suppose I've got to be grateful that the site is still running.
Maybe the decision has been made to shut it down, them faceless
ones not liking a bit of criticism. I guess I must be on some
New Labour list... somewhere..

Went to the new St Pancras development, and hated it. They had
no idea how to treat the old relic, and now it stinks of that
look that pollutes just about any other new shopping mall
that so-called architects and developers get their hands on.
Memories of the old gothic can be vaguely seen, hiding away amongst the gloss
and the bright blue roof structure. Hell knows what they will do with
the hotel, once my favourite building in London. Will they just keep the
facade? The joke is that this whole fiasco goes under the banner of
'careful restoration'. Restoration??? This is like putting a knife into
the Mona Lisa and then putting it into the shredder. Damn the
people who have vandalised this once great station.

Oh well, on with my travels. Exhibition Road area. Always a pleasure to
visit here: The South Ken Museums with all their amazing exterior
architecure still intact (so far). How I bet they would love to turn
these places into flats or religious buildings. Whilst they are spared
this fate, it is so wonderful to walk this area and look at the beauty
of the victorian builds. Walking up from the V&A to the Albert Memeorial,
one passes so much greatness. I was a great day.

More trivia: A great Routemaster Bus program on TV! Seeing where these
old London friends had ended up around the world. There are still a few
running in London as a sort of gesture. I went out to seek one an relive
the glory. They are brillaint. Of course, they have given us 'Bendy' buses
instead, to creak around our narrow streets. What a crime! It's all
just an anti British move. Anything of the past is being wiped out.

Instead, any new fads are being phased in. No matter what you hear,
gun crime, and it's associated 'culture', is still being encouraged.
Londoners have to live with the silly little gangstas and their shoot
outs. Every kid seems to aspire to being like it, and the TV is full
of dramas that make it look cool. Personally I'm sick of it, but then
my ways of politeness are hated. Too English. Ways of law and order
are still being dismantled, and I am in the way of this non progress.
It's sad to watch.
Amazing too that they try and blame gun crime on 'poverty'. Oh yes,
and fatherless families. Rediculous.
Was that another gun battle, or just more fireworks.
Bonfire night seems to go on for months. Every silly little kid and
their knives, guns, and fireworks.

And why bonfires? I thought there was all this faddish care
over pollution? Why are they so keen to spoil it all with bonfires
and fireworks? London stinks after the November 5th season. And then
again after New Years eve. And yet they moan on and on about fake
green issues and families using 4x4's. I'd love these gormless
incendiary blow outs banned for good, unless we were to throw
a few corrupt politicians onto the pyre.

November 2007

Political Correct-mess
Hello folks. Welcome to the London Destruction website's journal.
My Journal, in fact. Actually,
it's a bit politically incorrect, so I suggest that you look
away now, or view with only one eye open. I'm sorry, but with
my status in the
demographic
stakes being at the bottom rung,
and my beloved London going to the dogs, what else can I do?
I have to tell my story somehow.
You dare not say a thing nowadays.
And it's an Orwellian Nightmare.
Every nasty official wants to know who
I am, and where I live...

Architecture everywhere. Went to Arsenal football stadium,
to see the new mothership. Yes, it is an amazing new build,
sci-fi development. I was amazed to see how close one was to
the pitch. Everyone has a good view. And now the bad news:
Just how much demolition took place? Just how much pain did
the
residents
suffer? This build is right in the middle of
residential Holloway. Several businesses were affected, and
had to be pulled down. There were the protests, doomed to
failure. Looking around, they are still building there now!
Nevertheless, the 'Emirates' as they unfortunately call it,
is an amazing monster, and it does impress, at a human cost.

Oh hell. A walk through the city shows building works everywhere.
It's like one big building site. Walked up New Change. I used
to like that building at number 1. Now it's gone. It was Ok.
Red Brick
thing,
been there for years. Now a vault of mud and cranes. I walked
past so many construction areas that day. Its horrible. Leave
it alone. Go somewhere else. I loved and preffered the old city and it's alleys.

And so, it's on with life in London. I am here. I dont want to be
here. We are all under threat from the thugs who are encouraged
to act as they please. No law and order. Some scum got 'let off'
after hitting and
blinding
a 97 year old. Let off? And so it goes
on. Every week I know someone who is threatened. "Dont look at me man"
said the thug who I wasnt looking at. He knows he can act like that.
They want him to act like that. Once upon a time, scum were deported
to far off lands, and you would never see them again.

That reminds me. Diversity. What an insane idea. Jobs for people
just because of their race or religion. Is this the 21st Century or not?
Why is it that people are actively encouraged to define themselves by
their skin colour or 'belief'? It's so divisive. Maybe we should call it
divisity. Hell, this is rediculous. We are all just
human beings.
Get
over it. But no, this thought process is unassailable in most Londoner's
minds. I'm sick to death of seeing 'Diversity' everywhere. Ok, so you
employ on non-merit, what happens? A workforce 'Unfit For Purpose'.
You see it everywhere: PCSO's, Traffic Wardens, Council workers, and
worse: The tube's CSA's who man the barriers. Important jobs manned
by humans whose who cannot funtion, cannot communicate, and are rude
beyond belief.

No, I cant believe it's happening. But it is encouraged. Diverse thought
making sure humans devide themselves into groups. Then they wonder why
there is so much petty hate. We have suffered these non-initiatives in
London. Today, London finishes its long 'History Month' for people with
a certain skin tone. This is stupid. We are just humans. Why stir up
trouble. Then, just recently, Trafalgar Square was taken over for
a festival for followers of a 'peaceful' religion. Oh no. Why oh why
do we have to suffer this. Bad enough that there is all the evil politics
and hate and greed, but this
ignorance
and multiculturalism is just
destroying London. Humans are of limited intelligence. We are doomed.

October 2007

Pearly King of Kensington
It was a bad start to the year. This TV programme started,
and superimposed over it was some person pulling silly
faces at the viewer, like some
Quasimodo impression.
Yes, here is the signer, yet again ruining another late
night show. Surely there must be an easier way, even in
PC crazed Britain.

Correctness works against us, all of the time. And most
laws and taxes seem to be passed in order to destroy anything
thats good. And there is no law & order. I witnessed another
bout of threatening behaviour on the bus - here was a being
that should be locked up for life, and never let out, able
to express himself in all his horrid savagery, throwing
violent threats out at the vunerable and good natured.
But what could you do? Who knows what weapons this
modern day gangster
conceals, and everyone knows that the police
would arrest the victims if they fought back. But where were
the police? One look at the bus stop at the Elephant & Castle
would reveal the truth. About 20 officers checking the bus
tickets of passengers. Oh, and another 20 stopping car drivers
in Bromley for not wearing seat belts. Let's face it: There are
certain nasty criminal acts that the PC police shy away from, and
hence we find ourselves in a lawless city. I would suggest
we all turn vigilante, but I wont, lest this site be closed
down by our Orwellian state.

At least we had the
London Open House: That splendid architecture
weekend where thousands can trample around those usually private
buildings. It is now much too popular as to be unworkable, but
there are some gems to be found. This year, amongst many ventures,
I used this as an excuse to ascend the Wellington Arch, that in the
centre of Hyde Park Corner. Not much to see, but it was amazing the
lengths they went to in the accessibility dept. In this cramped space,
they have managed to install wheelchair lifting to this 200 year
old relic, which must have been such an ordeal, and then there are
raised floors on the balcony, so a wheelchair user could just about
strain to peek over the edge to see... nothing much at all. Just
how many buildings have been ruined to accommodate the less mobile?
I havent visited the Monument for many years, now I wonder if they
have removed the stairs for a chair lift...

I could hear the calls from the PC brigade... Shut this website
down! Just as we are being labelled, stamped, numbered, barcoded,
chipped, fingerprinted and
DNA sampled, they really want our free
thought quashed, and our history and tradition edited out. With
taxes and rules and restrictions abound, we are so close to getting
wiped out forever. This once great city is drowning in a sea of
non cultures. Violence and religion and politics are making us
die inside. This is not London. Just another faceless Euro-city.

I would lastly like to brag to the world and all the eco nazis
that I have in fact got an enormous
carbon footprint and if I
hear of any more recycling or green taxes coming my way then
some of these liberal luddites will get a big carbon footprint booted
onto their behind. No, this isnt mindless violence, it is the
revolution starting in my living room, and being written onto
the only free press that we have left: The good old Internet,
where the government can read all my mail and profile me
as big trouble. Yes, we are all an open book now to the
authorities, and no steaming open of letters are necessary
any more: It's all automatic. And if you disagree with anything,
even in passing, you are in a black book forever.

I guess this is the point where I get taken away in the night to
New Labour's Room 101,
and be made to conform. Oh dear. This is Charles,
last survivor of the town that we used to call: London.

September 2007

Mind The Gap
Hello everybody. This is me, writing to you. Yes, I'm still
here, living in London. It's horrible. And yet, against all
odds, I still survive (so far).
Gun crime and knife crime
has got worse again, even worse than reported in my last
report. I heard some dodgy politician on the radio say again that crime
was actually falling. Oh no! Some people in the media get excited
over the most rediculously spun figures and initiatives.
Like how they exclaimed the virtues of this new 'Pay As
You Throw' garbage scheme. How they might charge us by
the item to collect our trash. Are our masters laughing
at us? Presently, our rubbish is left to pile up for weeks,
is full of rats, and we have dozens of recycle bins blocking
up our doorways, all of which have their contents mixed
together on collection day. The biggest surprise of all is
that they can get away with it. But who devises all these
money making schemes? How do they sleep? Soundly, I guess.
But who can save us from these mobsters? Who can protect
us from this stupidity. I feel the fear: They can do what they like
and there's nothing we can do about it. There's not even a
good alternative at the ballot box.

And so they held up the major west end streets of London
yesterday, so another
politically correct statue could
be erected in Pariament Square. I was always wondering
what would follow that embarassing effigy they put up in
Trafalgar Square:
You know, that one of the pregnant lady with the big knockers.
It all getting a bit too farcical now. Not content with pulling
down the old buildings, they love blotting the landscape with
some horrid political statements. We all sat in dispair watching
Red Ken shed some fake tears for the cameras. The joke is on us.

Went on a recce to see the great Camden Stables market, an important
area, and one of the last around town to have avoided the developers,
until now. View this wonderful place as it stands today, with olden
architecture and local traders. The
end is nigh, so we are told.
The new Gilgamesh restaurant here, which is quite a far out design,
but should have been built elsewhere, now stands on the entrance to
the Stables: The beginning of the end, no doubt. Other happenings
of note: Glad to see that they will now not pull down the chimneys
of Battersea Power Station, or so they say. Very unglad to see that
Thameslink 2000 has the go ahead, and that means the end for part
of Borough Market and the neighbourhood. And thanks for a reader
for the details of Upton Park's Queens Market, also under threat
of dastardly development deeds.

Developers... Councillors... Politicians... Managers... The list
of
London's nasty characters
seems endless. And for those of us
with not much money, who love what London was or could be, all
we can do is watch it all go to pieces. What can we do? I spend
most of my life dealing with kafkaesque bureaucracy, and people
who try and tread on me. The overall feeling is a climate
of fear. Yet we are encouraged to think that things are really
great. Big money is spent on fun and celebrations, but how can
we enjoy it all when its all a scam? Take the fiasco of the
Olympic 2012 bid and it's subsequent 24 hour building site...
Its no fun to see endless cash appear to prop up this £12billion
blow out, especially when they stopped altzheimers patients getting
that medicine at £2 a throw. Seems we're all doomed, yet again.
Oh well, thanks for reading this journal. Goodbye for now.

August 2007

Damn Their Impudence
Urg... and so London continues to sink further into the swamp
of political and development lunacy. But what can you do? They are
all untouchable, and answerable to nobody. Its a horrible world to
live in. Just listen to them go on in the media.
"Crime is actually
falling"
said the London politico. "Real crime is actually down, so
all these myths about crime are wrong". We are expected to listen
to this hogwash with an interested and excited demeanor, and then go
and vote for them in the next election. Meanwhile, and in the real
world, we are beseiged by all the worlds villains, who have come to
London to rob and murder us all. The police do nothing. Only last week,
another kid shot dead by little gangsters. They are allowed to behave
exactly as they please, and then plead 'poverty' in court.
I think that it's only going to get worse...

The London streets are alive with the filth of society, and at every
few paces, a 'normal' person is escaping from their evils. Street robbers,
beggars, care in the community, drug addicts, drunks, and just general
bad behaviour that so many think is 'cool'. Good behaviour is frowned upon.
Your have to hope you get home without being
knifed or shot.
Oh, I must
remember that crime rates are actually 'falling', so obviously this is
all an illusion or mirage. Maybe it is me who is the problem.

Meanwhile, as the old Baltic Exchange is packed up and shipped to Estonia,
we have to take this on board, and any fine building which is destroyed
by developers could be taken down, packed up, and shipped out to a new
London, somewhere in the world. There, we can create a town guarded 24 hours
from developer scum who might want to send in the bulldozers. One such
candidate for reassembling is the mightiest of all cafes:
The New Piccadilly Cafe,
now serving
it's last fry-up before getting flattened. Surely this wonderful little
place could be carefully taken down and restored somewhere in the world?
It's such a beautiful place. How could they possible destroy it?
If only those Estonian business people could save all our betrayed buildings,
then we could save so much architecture for the future.
I dont care where it's relocated, as long as it's saved, although I
wish they would leave things alone in the first place.
What can we do to fight back?

Other recent redevelopment threats are to be found yet again in the
Camden area, and this time it's the Stables that the moronic moneymen
want to move in on. Where once we had a quirky old antique business,
we might soon have a
pizza franchise. It's Carnaby Street all over
again. It's only the shop owners, tourists, and the shoppers that realise that
the success of these places is due to the novelty of it all, the surprises,
the bargains, the fun and community. This is another fabulous part of London
that's on the verge of being wrecked and perverted because of the greed
and ignorance of the developers and local councillors.

Nevermind... Red Ken spent £zillions bringing the sweaty Tour de France over
to clog up London's streets, and he's busy
making sure that we spend £billions on the 2012
Olympics which will grind London to a standstill for the next few years.
They wont rest until our London looks like
one giant McDonalds, with a parade
every other day celebrating some foreign fiasco. In the meantime, we are
deluged with regressive green taxes and climate change propaganda.
This is getting unbearable.

July 2007

It Was The Greatest Cockney Ripoff
Hello, and welcome back everyone. I was at the new Millenium Dome yesterday,
seeing how it had just opened after 7 years of mothballs and raves. And lo
and behold and whatever, I think they had done a good job and all, having
built a major auditorium for 23,000, surrounded by an entertainment boulevard,
palm trees ,
another multiplex cinema, and some smaller gig places, all under
the one roof, or should I say 'tent'. Ok, I think its fine now, but let us
not forget, ever, the story of this great carbuncle, and the money the
government wasted at our expense. The greatest ripoff? Of should that
be the new Wembley Stadium?

Anyway, if it's July 1st, its time for some rather nifty no smoking
legislation, and about time too, because smokers stink the place out
like a stale pub ashtray, and it's on their clothes and breath too.
Actually, I've stuck up for smokers rights in the past, and noticed
that the best place to hang out in any work place was always the smokers
room. Some of the best anarchists I've ever met have been smokers. Some
of the best union members, and the best revolutionaries, the best artists.
But... ask a smoker politely to please move their cigarette because the
smoke is going in your face? Even if you add 'pretty please'
You Are Dead.
Why do they act like that? Ok, so they hung themselves in my eyes.
Even though I was on their side, and I
stood up for their rights, smokers have been so rude and inconsiderate
and selfish to me over the years, that I gave up on them. Now they are banned
from public indoor places in London, and it's absolute Karma at work.

Oh, and good riddance Tony Blair, and oh no, Brown is the new prime minister,
but what are the alternatives? I cant stand any of the options. All London's
politicos are corrupt, and full of correctness and spin. And serious debate
is impossible, or you be branded the as the worst of humanity, or even worse
than that. We are all doomed to stay ruled in this police state of cctv
control and surveillence stupidity. Help! As I write, London is plunged
into another era of car bomb attacks, thanks to the religious nutters. Again,
the government stress that this is a 'small minority'. Oh yeah? I see
thousands celebrating these acts. The enemy lives among us. The
large majority
of them hate us, and they hate our way of life.
They are allowed to act exactly as they please, and you dare not
criticise them, dare not say a word...

Lastly, I read of the sad threatened closure of many tube booking offices,
thanks to those
lowlife Tfl
and the Mayor. We need those offices open and
open longer, to get us through the many instances when those oyster machines
are just too inadequate. We need explanations, help, a manual transaction,
and human intervention.
This is just cost cutting, so that Tfl can afford more american consultants
who, by their own admission, do absolutely nothing but
sit on their hands and take the money.

June 2007

What about MY human rights?
Well hello everyone, welcome back to the journal. So what's cooking?
Apart from the Cutty Sark going up in flames, it was biz as usual.
The new Wembley opened, and London got its major stadium back after
7 years. How dumb is that. And the
Burger & Chips
inside were £8 a throw (up).
I shall always miss the old stadium though, with it's twin towers and all,
and there were plenty of reminders on TV this week about how wonderful it
used to look. Now... the stadium is like any other, and the PR about the
'arch' is pathetic. I hate the new Wembley, especially after hearing all the
spin about how 'great' it is. Do they think we're born yesterday?

Made a recce to see a sadly demolished Bishopsgate Goodsyard. All that history
gone so they can make another indentikit office complex. Ok, so they have
retained that turret on the front gate, and a few other areas I believe, but
how miserable it all looks. On the way there by tube, I was witness to another
resurrection: That of the tube-bound gypsy beggar. She is back, and in greater
numbers, all carring this dead looking baby trussed up in sheets. Nobody paid
up. What I do miss is those accordion playing beggars that play the
Lambada
and wander through a packed tube in rush hour, with threatening looks at the
commuters. Please dont say that these fine fellows have been deported, and
their instruments thrown into the sea! Heavens above. What about their
human rights. No.. what about OUR bloody human rights. Why do we have to
put up with all this intimidation. Where's the law and order? Why have most
of the worlds criminals moved to London?

That reminds me, I must rejoin the human race, and become more politically
correct, and love my government, for these
politicians
are my elders, and
people I should look towards for guidance, for they are our wonderful leaders,
don't you know.

Anyway, what else. Oh yes, recce to the old GLC island block, that old
roundabout south of Westminster bridge, to see this big mound of earth that
it had become, and take in the view before they build on it again. Ugh.
And what about this road pricing hell that they will thrust upon us? The
more I read about that, the more my
will to live
evaporated. Unbelievable.
They will track us everywhere. Then I heard: Baliffs will now have the right
to break into your home! I also read and read every day about this recycling
madness and multiple bin syndrome which had made London town an eyesore
everywhere and increased street rubbish to resemble 1978. Ultimately, this
whole charade is just a mission to control us all, invade our lives, scrutinise
our actions, and charge more tax. Just like loyalty cards, Oyster cards,
id cards, cctv, chip implants, & mobile tracking: Big bastard is watching you...